Davies, Horton. Worship and Theology in England From Cranmer to Hooker, 1534-1603, Vol. 1. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1996. http://www.amazon.com/
This book is worth the purchase, if but only for the bibliography.
Cranmer draws a “curious medieval” allusion of the Bible to the system. “…The worde of God, the most precious Juel and moost holy reyque that remayneth upon the earth” (12). We would add that justification by faith alone, tied to a sober Christology (a real Nicene Christology), with definitive redemption (hint, hint, Dordt), ripped into the fibre, marrow and muscle of Rome. Rome's been defending their busted and broken Nicene Christology ever since too, truth be told.
Mr. Davies advises that it would have “been impossible to attack the international power and authority of the Roman Catholic Church, with its immense prestige and immemorial traditions, unless it was believed that the Scriptures were the very Word of God” (13). The close study of the Bible exposed the vulnerabilities of a Roman Anglicanism; but they were willing to confront that international prestige with the Word of God.
We would add the following. During the court trials of the Reformers--for treason and heresy--Reformers who were arrested by the 1.0 Anglicans, or the Papal Anglicans, this was the constant refrain: You Reformers or Evangelicals have gone against the “faith held everywhere.” Over and over and over. And then some. And then some more. Over and over. That was the claim put against the docketed Reformers: the immensity and prestige of the Papal church. Over and over, the Reformers kept answering with the Bible.
Mr. (bp.) Jewel:
• The Word of God “guides the restless heart”
• Contained all that was “necessary to salvation”
• Was “the sure and infallible rule whereby may be tried whether the church doth stagger and err and whereunto all ecclesiastical doctrines may be called to account…”
Much, much more could be said. For further development of this theme, Mr. (Rev. Dr. Prof.) Philip Edgcumbe Hughes' The Theology of the English Reformers is a handy volume. (Oh how I miss my old Professor, Dr. Hughes! Upon return from deployments, he was always willing to meet privately and talk!)
Otherwise, Mr. Davies notes that “vast efforts to train” ordinands “in the original languages of Hebrew and Greek” are inexplicable. Well, in some places, that no longer is an issue. Exegesis actually mattered to these Reformers.
Mr. Davies comments on Latimer. For example, Latimer’s famous “Sermon of the Plough” on the Parable of the Sower: God’s Word is the seed, the congregation is the field, and the Preacher is the ploughman.
And Mr. Davies notes that Mr. (Canterbury) Edmund Grindal was of the same mold as Latimer. He did not believe the homilies were adequate. He supported the “prophesyings.” The "prophesyings" were essentially, a local/regional presbytery or group of Church of England Presbyters, gathering to discuss the Bible and theology. She disliked that. He liked that. She closed him up in his palace and suspended Mr. Canterbury's ministry. It's a blotch on the Church of England's history.
He wrote Ms. (Elizabeth) Tudor that ministry could not be done alone “by homilies:" rather, he wrote her, "exhortations, reprehensions, and persuasions are uttered with more affection, to the moving of the hearers, in sermons than in homilies” (14). Tudor obstinacy prevailed over Mr. Canterbury.
The Church of England’s Reformers were also, self-consciously, looking at the first six centuries of theology and practice “before the establishment of Papal primacy.” They wished to avoid the private “idiosyncracies” of the interpreter, what Romanists rightly called “dangerous subjectivity.” They accepted the first four Councils insisting that they were “not innovators, but renovators” (16). In this regard, Cranmer insisted that the “Saxon forefathers had their Saxon translations” and that Chrysostom and Gregory of Nazianzus insisted on lay consultation and literacy in the Bible.
Cranmer, Jewel and Whitgift possessed “the great patristic erudition of the leaders of the Anglican church in Tudor times” (17). On the other hand, they were not slavish either.
Mr. Davies raises the great question of “justification by faith alone.” No longer was salvation “on the installment plan” (17). The Roman Anglicans, as well as Continental ones, believed that these Evangelicals were “rude iconoclasts” who were advocating for “antinomianism” (17). The “Protestants,” or “Evangelicals” as they were commonly called in England, were careful about the distinction between justification and sanctification. Robert Barnes, a very early Reformer, got the point exactly right as did Cranmer in his Homily on Salvation. We could add more on this point. The Westminster Larger Catechism has probably the finest succinct statement in English theological literature on the distinction...priceless, but little known.
Once the English Protestants and Evangelicals asserted the “sole mediatorship of Christ the Justifier and Redeemer” (in the Edwardian and Elizabeth versions, 3.0 and 5.0 versions), there was “the reduction of statues and the role of the Virgin Mary and saints” (20).
Cranmer’s chaplain, Thomas Becon, another victim of the 1.0/4.0 Papal Anglicans in England, wrote that “the humble laymen” were living as “practicing polytheists:”
• “Fast the blessed saints’ evens and worship them with a Paternoster, Ave, and Creed, they will do for us whatever we ask” (20)
• St. George—will save you from battle
• St. Barbara—from thunder and lightning
• St. Agasse—from the house catching afire
• St. Anthony—keeping the swine
• St. Luke and St. Job—from the pox
• St. Nicholas—from drowning
• St. Loye—cures for the house
• St. Apolline—from bad teeth
• St. Sweetland and St. Agnes—to send along good husbands
• St. Peter—greeter at the “heavenly gates”
• “…with a thousand such-like”
For those of us who have travelled widely in Italy, Greece, and elsewhere, don't let the slick palaver of phony ecumenists fool you.
These intercessors are everywhere including shrines and more. Same idea. Same issues.
There is a standing reason that Reformers still are abused by these non-Reformed voices in the so-called Anglican world.
We have a Tractarian in town here who routinely invokes saints during the ACC service. Mr. (bp.) Roy Grote's son (REC) was busy invoking Mary during Holy Communion. Mr. (bp.) Leo Riches defends it too. Misters. (bp.) Iker and Ackerman advocate this. Good grief! We could say more.
We'll say this: no peace with these atavistic voices, none.
They are Non-Papal Roman Anglicans. They are not Reformed Anglicans. They, as Mr. (Rev. Dr. Prof.) James Packer once averred, are "Roman Trojan Horses." We are not sure he believes that any more.
The Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) allows it. All the Continuing churches permit it (UECNA, ACC, ACA, etc.). And they ask for trust? Sorry.
History is on our side even if abandoned by the so-called ecumenists.
